You are a better man than I. I love the concept of lock miters but
have just had a few huge failures that have made them scary to me.

1. Every time I use them I have to look up on the web for a
description of how to make the adjustments during setup. Thers is a
great document, I think from Amana that shows various misalignment
scenarious and describes if you need to move the fence in or the bit
up or down. It still takes for ever to get them setup. Yeah, setup
blocks help but always still need a tune up.

2. Because the alignment is so critical and on two axis, you can't
really do multiple succesivly deeper passes. You have to cut all the
material at once. This can be a lot of material. I have ripped a
partial bevel in the edge before to help minimize but you need to be
carefule to not take too much material so there is enough left for the
tounge.

I was building a stickly repro bed for a client. It had 4" posts, over
4' tall. The plan was miter locked boxes with some infill where I had
huge 1" x 4" through tenons. I had beautiful figured QS white oak and
trashed all 16 pieces because the few times the bit would catch and
jump while hogging out the WO it was actually pulling it out of the
collet so the setup changed but I was too dumb to recheck and none of
them matched up well. I've since gone to a shaper for such ops so
things are better but I am still very afraid of this joint type.

On Sep 24, 7:29*am, Steve Turner wrote:
DJ Delorie wrote:
I'm designing a new desk for myself, with modular units for the
"pedestals". Each side of the desk will have one or more of these of
various widths. Each is a separate box (sides, back, bottom) made from
1/2in plywood with hardwood fronts (face frame, drawer front,
whatever, not shown in photo). I'm wondering... what would be the best
joinery to use to assemble the plywood box part - rabbet+glue?
biscuits? lock miter? pocket screws? something else? a combination of
the above?

Photo, details, and sketchup file:http://www.delorie.com/wood/desk/module.html

I've had great success building milk crate sized storage boxes from 1/2" plywood using
nothing but lock miter joints cut on the router table. *The better quality the plywood the
better the results (baltic birch, for instance), but most of the boxes I've built were
standard construction quality 1/2" ply and they've held up famously. *I've even had to build
some for friends after they saw the results. *:-) *Another plus is that the joint is
virtually invisible once it's all locked together. *Glue-up is very easy because the lock
miter joint is self-aligning; just slather yellow glue in the slots, fit it all together and
clamp. *You should try building some small boxes with this technique just for grins to see
what I mean.

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